Car Battery Water Level – Introduction and Checking

Wet lead-acid car batteries come with water levels that should be checked regularly. When the water drops below the required levels, it can expose the internal parts to certain conditions that are not ideal. This could cause corrosion and complete battery damage.

It's crucial to check and refill the water as part of proper battery maintenance. Unfortunately, most people don't know how to do this, which forces them to buy new batteries when the ones they have get damaged.

In this guide, we will be teaching you how to check the battery level and refill. Keep reading.

Car Battery Water Level Check

Before we look at how to check battery water, is it good to check? It's crucial to know whether it's good and safe to check anything under the hood of your car.

The traditional lead acid battery comes with positive and negative electrodes inside a liquid electrolyte. Electrons travel through the electrolyte from the negative to the positive during discharge and vice versa when the battery is charging. The electrodes must be fully submerged in a mixture of sulfuric acid and distilled water that makes the battery water.

You will see the "Max" mark near the top of your battery, indicating where the water level should be. Anything less or over will cause damage to the battery.

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The water reduces due to spillage when the car is running. And that is why it's crucial to check and refill it as soon as you notice something out of the ordinary.

How to Check Car Battery Water

Now that you know the importance of checking the water level in your car battery, we want to show you how to do it. Follow these steps:

Clean the battery and open the ports.

There is a big chance that your battery has spilled a lot, and there is liquid on the cover. If not for the spillage, there could be dirt on the cover, which you don't want to mix with the battery water. Therefore, the first and perhaps most important step is to clean the battery. For this:

Locate the battery. Open the hood and check where it's located. Most batteries are under the engine compartment, while a few models like Mercedes Benz and BMW have batteries concealed in the trunk.

Clean. Take a piece of a soft cloth and clean off dirt and debris from the top of the lid and around the terminals. For road grime and minor corrosion, use ammonia-based window cleaners. And for heavier corrosion, consider a paste of baking soda and water.

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Open the battery ports. You will see the semi-rectangular plastic covers sealing each battery port. You can remove them gently by prying them with a plastic putty knife. If the battery has six individual covers, you can open them by simply twisting counterclockwise.

Continue leaning the battery if necessary until you are sure there is no more dirt left. Take extreme precautions here to ensure no dirt gets into the battery water.

Assess the current fluid level.

After cleaning and opening the ports, you can go on and check the existing levels. This step is crucial as it lets you check whether some cells are fully submerged. For this step:

?Compare the levels in each cell. Look down into each and record the fluid level in each cell. Ensure they are all covered. If some of the cells seem overly covered due to accidental overfilling, you can reduce the liquid in the affected cell. If the level is low, you need to fix it by adding more water.

?Recognize low water levels. Is there any part of the plates exposed to the air? That is an indication of low electrolyte. Leaving them exposed like that will only take a few days to ruin the battery, forcing you to buy a new one.

?Recognize normal levels. A normal reading is when the fluid level is about ? inch or 1 cm above the plates or 1/8 -inch under the bottoms of filler tubes. You may not need to add water to your batteries at this stage.

?Recognize maximum level. If the fluid is just touching the bottom of the filler tubes, it's at maximum levels. You can recognize this from an eye-shaped meniscus it forms.

Once you get the correct levels, you can go on and adjust them appropriately. Be careful when doing this to avoid further damage to your battery.

How to Refill Batter Water for Car

Adjusting the fluid level in your car battery is quite easy. Here is what you need to do:

Only use distilled water. This water can be purchased from most local stores. You can tell low battery water by looking at exposed plates. Fill each cell until the plates are covered.

Use a clean funnel or sports bottle to control the flow and accurately the right levels. Ensure no dirt or debris falls into the battery when you start refilling.

Do not use tap or well water. Such water contains minerals and chemicals that will affect the battery life.

Charge the battery immediately after refilling it. Ensure the battery is fully charged before you start using it again to give it more life.

NOTE: if your battery is weak or dead, do not fill the cells fully. Add just enough water to cover the cells or leave it at normal. This is because the electrolyte rises when a weak or dead battery is charged and may lead to spillage.

How to Make Battery Water

Can you make battery water at home? Yes. Although we recommend buying ready water from the store, you can still make some from home.

The electrolyte in the battery is a mixture of sulfuric acid and water. Battery water is clean, distilled, or deionized water. It's not tapped water or well water that contains minerals, as stated above.

You can make such water by taking water and distilling it to remove the minerals. During the distillation process, ensure the working area is clean so that no dirt gets into the water. You can then use clean water to refill your battery.